THE PLANES 147 



detail, even on a single bough, is practically in- 

 finite. No leaf rebels more against the misrepre- 

 sentations of the geometrical school of draughts- 

 men. 



The bark is by itself sufficient to distinguish 

 the Plane from the Sycamore (A'cer Pseu'do- 

 platanus), which is commonly confounded with it, 

 especially in Scotland ; but the Sycamore has also 

 its leaves in opposite pairs and far less smooth, 

 whilst in autumn they are almost always marked 

 with the round blots of an ink-black parasitic fungus. 



When the foliage is yet young, the drooping 

 flower-stalks are produced, the pollen-bearing flowers 

 being on distinct branches from those that yield fruit, 

 though either kind is collected together into the 

 characteristic " buttons," or globular catkins. 



The Oriental Plane is first mentioned, among 

 English writers, by William Turner, in his " Herbal," 

 printed at Cologne in 15G8 ; and in 1596 John 

 Gerard had it growing in his garden in Hoi born, 

 the history of his specimen being subsequently 

 given by him in his " Herball " (1597), p. 1304, as 

 follows : 



" My seruant William Marshall, whom I sent into the 

 Mediterranean Sea as chirurgion vnto the Hercules of London, 

 found diuers trees heerof growing- in Lepantas, hard by the sea 

 side, at the entrance into the towne, a port of Morea, being 

 a part of Greece, and from thence brought one of those rough 

 buttons* being the fruit thereof." 



Our Transatlantic neighbours still call the 

 Plane the Button-ball, or Button-wood. 



One of the most striking structural peculiari- 

 ties of the Planes is the fact that during the 



